Ontario Provincial Police Block

If the drift of Canada towards a police state has not yet affected you directly, you would do well to recall the words of Pastor Martin Niemoller, writing in Germany before his arrest in the 1930s: "The Nazis came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics and I was a Protestant, so I didn't speak up....by that time there was nobody left to speak up for anyone."

Three OPP officers are dead, driven off the road or crashed in mysterious car accidents, and the Ontario Provincial Police aren't even investigating the possibility that all three were murdered.

Former OPP officer Kenneth "Tex" Deane, the same man who shot Native protestor Dudley George and convicted of criminal negligence causing death in 1995, was killed February 25th 2006 when he was speeding and driving in multiple lanes and crashed into a truck.

OPP negotiator sergeant Margaret Eve, who attempted to negotiate with the Native protestors back in 1995 and was present when Dudley George was shot, was hit by a transport truck on Highway 401 near Chatham in June 2000. The truck driver was not drunk and was charged with only 1 count of Criminal Negligence causing death and 1 count of Dangerous Driving causing death. No explanation was ever given why the truck driver decided to swerve off the road and drive into 4 police officers.

Four months later OPP Inspector Dale Linton, the officer who activated Deane's unit the night Dudley George was shot, was killed in a single-vehicle crash near Smiths Falls in October 2000. It is unknown why he suddenly veered off the road and crashed his car.

Margaret Eve's death may have been accidental, but the deaths of both Ken Deane and Dale Linton suggest they may have been pursued by an unknown threat and in the course of attempting to get away crashed their cars.

Strangely enough however the OPP have launched no investigation into the possibility that all three (or at least the latter two) could have been murdered. All three were important witnesses in the Ipperwash Inquiry, which became useless after their deaths because few others on the OPP would agree to testify.

There is more to this story however. The OPP had a lot to lose from the Ipperwash Inquiry. The OPP's reputation had been permanently tarnished by the death of Dudley George in 1995 and lives could be permanently ruined if certain witnesses explained what really happened.

There is also an anonymous letter from a member of the OPP to the George family's lawyer which claimed part of the responsibility for the death of Dudley George. It is possible this anonymous OPP officer is also the same person responsible for the other OPP deaths in order to cover up their identity.

So, based on the facts, it would appear Ontario has a cop-killer within the ranks of the OPP, and the OPP are doing nothing about it. Instead their deaths have all been chalked down as accidental.

Sadly its probably because the person involved has managed to cover their paper trail and kill all the witnesses so there is no one and nothing left to point the finger. Even if an investigation was made what is the chances the cop-killer forgot something?

There is also one other possibility:

Mike Harris, former Premier of Ontario, would have a lot to lose if the inquiry had pointed the finger squarely at him.

It was Mike Harris who ordered the OPP to do whatever was necessary to get the Native protestors out of Ipperwash. Many of the documents have gone missing, but according to a government memo and a leaked racist slur ("I want the f*cking Indians out of the park!") Mike Harris doesn't like Natives one bit and being new in office at the time had decided to throw his weight around and become a mini-Mussolini.

According to the Ipperwash Inquiry report:

"The Premier's determination to seek a quick resolution closed off many options endorsed by civil servants in the Ontario government, including process negotiations, the appointment of mediators, and opening up communication with the First Nations people. His narrow approach to the occupation did not enable the situation to stabilize at the park."

The OPP members in question also had previous stains on the record from racist issues, so its conceivable that Mike Harris and the OPP saw eye to eye on this matter and were identical in their thinking of shoot-first-ask-questions-later. So some hitman working for Mike Harris is another possibility for the cop-killer in question.

Whether the cop-killer is some hitman working for Mike Harris or a member of the OPP it doesn't really matter. There should still be an investigation into the deaths.

Walkerton Water & E.coli

During the 1995 to 1999 period in which Mike Harris was the Premier of Ontario, he cut environmental spending by 44% and axed over 900 staff positions, including those responsible for testing public water safety. Water safety was the hardest hit, getting a 78% cut in spending. His Conservative government then downloaded the responsibility of testing water safety onto the municipalities, all the while not providing a funding package in order to PAY for the municipalities to have their water tested.

Normally, when a level of provincial government downloads a service onto a municipality, they are expected to provide a sum of cash (on a yearly basis) to help pay for that service. Mike Harris did not provide that money. He basically said "Here, you take this and you can pay for it."

Meanwhile, a series of water safety reports dated on the years 1993, 1995, 1997 and 1999 all said that Ontario, and in particular the town of Walkerton was in need of new water safety measures due to old rusted equipment, wells that are becoming more contaminated due to agricultural runoff, etc. According to the Environment Minister at the time, Harris did read these reports, and it was due to these reports that the process of downloading water safety began. Meaning, Harris did not want to pay for fixing water safety, so instead he decided to simply "pass the buck" and give it to the municipalities.

During May of 2000 there was a series of heavy rainfalls that caused agricultural runoff to flood the local wells in Walkerton. The resulting catastrophe caused seven people to die from E-coli poisoning and another 14 people to die from E-coli related illnesses, bringing it to a grand total of 21 people who died from the tragedy.

Also, another 2600 Walkerton area residents fell sick due to drinking contaminated water. These people have suffered severe liver damage and have had their life-expectancy cut by roughly 20 years. The average life expectancy for a Canadian is 78. The residents and locals from the Walkerton area who fell sick are expected to only live to be 58.

Mike Harris's response at the time was to blame the citizens of Walkerton for not asking for extra funding for their damaged water supply, and to blame the incompetent Koebel brothers with mismanaging the Walkerton wells and water treatment centre. He later publicly apologized, but it was really only half of an apology, because instead he blamed his staff: "My staff had given me wrong information about provincial-federal infrastructure," said Harris, who spoke personally with mayor David Thomson by telephone. "I just apologize to you, to the people of Ontario and of course to Walkerton for any confusion over that."

The facts are this: During the 1994-1995 fiscal year, water safety/sewer infrastructure spending for ALL of Ontario was $271 million. By the time the Walkerton disaster occurred, the 2000/2001 fiscal spending was a mere $65 million. Thats less than 24% of what was being spent 6 years earlier.

It is what someone might call "deliberate gross incompetence".

In addition to cutting water safety, Harris also cut healthcare spending, schools, hospitals, road safety/transportation, universities, and pretty much anything that was deemed a "luxury" at the time. This is what he called "The Common Sense Revolution".

Public health and safety is not a luxury, and it is definitely not common sense to cut spending on it either.